Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Faithless by Kjell Ola Dahl - Blog Tour Review

My first blog tour for today is for the wonderful Faithless by Kjell Ola Dahl. I'm really going to have to stop reading Orenda books as they keep adding whole series of books that I want to read to my TBR because I want to read everything each author has written!

Faithless

When the body of a woman turns up in a dumpster, scalded and wrapped in plastic, Inspector Frank Frølich is shocked to discover that he knows her—and their recent meetings may hold the clue to her murder. As he begins to look deeper into the tragic events surrounding her death, Frølich’s colleague Gunnarstranda finds another body, and things take a more sinister turn. With a cold case involving the murder of a young girl in northern Norway casting a shadow, and an unsettling number of coincidences clouding the plot, Frølich is forced to look into his own past to find the answers—and the killer—before he strikes again. Dark, brooding and utterly chilling, atmospheric page-turner marks the return of an internationally renowned and award-winning series, from one of the fathers of Nordic Noir.

My Review

You can immediately tell why Kjell Ola Dahl is one of the forerunners in the Nordic Noir genre, the writing is beautiful and the storytelling is incredibly well thought out that it's just a pleasure to read.

Faithless is straight to the point and is very traditional in it's investigation style of the crime, it shows that it takes time to discover and research and solve crimes and that not all murders are solved by a sudden aha moment with some new technology. It's very refreshing to see this as a throw back to how crime novels used to be and I thoroughly enjoyed the slower pace and methodical nature of the book. I also really enjoyed Inspector Frank Frølich, his dedication and experience shine through and feel really authentic. I feel like he is believable as not just a character but as a real person and can imagine him working away in a police station solving crimes.

The location stands out as its described perfectly and it feels like an extra supporting character who helps the story along, It's both beautiful and haunting and makes me want to visit right now.

Faithless is the seventh book in the series and having not read the other six, I was still able to jump right in and treat this as a stand alone. As I said in my intro though, it now means I have six other books I need to go find and read because of how much I enjoyed Faithless.

Faithless is chilling and compulsive reading and a great gateway to reading Nordic noir. Easily read in one sitting as the atmosphere consumes you and the story's twists and turns take you on a thrilling ride to the ending which is absolutely stunning.

Overall an excellent novel and one I will be recommending from here on out.

About The Author

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published eleven novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. His work has been published in 14 countries, and he lives in Oslo.